HK protest smokes 50-a-day law

HONG KONG, China - Protesters posed for photographs as they hold
placards against allowing mainland Chinese drivers into Hong Kong, at a
demonstration in a park in Hong Kong on February 12, 2012.

The group on the social network website Facebook was set up after the scheme was announced by the Hong Kong government last week. It will allow 50 Chinese motorists into Hong Kong every day to a maximum of 350 at any given time.

Drivers from Hong Kong will also be allowed to travel to the Chinese border province of Guangdong.

PARK RALLY

Those against the scheme claim it will make the city's roads more polluted and less safe as drivers from China will find it difficult to adapt to driving on the left, a legacy of its colonial past, compared to on the right in China.

The Democratic Party has also collected 1400 signatures protesting against the scheme and on Sunday more than 200 people attended a rally in the city's Victoria Park urging the government to scrap the plan.

The protest comes at a time when tensions are rising between Hong Kong people and their Chinese mainland neighbours after a series of cross-border spats. Many are particularly vexed by the tens of thousands of pregnant mainland women who cross the border every year to give birth in Hong Kong, putting a huge strain on public hospitals.

Earlier this month a group of Hong Kong residents took out a full-page newspaper advertisement calling mainland Chinese visitors "locusts" in response to comments by a Beijing professor which called Hong Kong people "bastards," "thieves" and "dogs".

DPA

Comments

tinyswart - 2012-02-14 14:24

Some editing required:
"drivers from China will find it difficult to adapt to driving on the left, a legacy of its colonial past, compared to on the right in China."
Looks like drivers from China drive on both the left and right side of the road?

nbasson - 2012-02-14 17:16

"drivers from China will find it difficult to adapt to driving on the left (in Hong Kong),a legacy of its colonial past, compared to on the right in China."
Happy? It does refer to the city earlier in the sentence.